Politics

zzz (on hiatus)

Wills has a really great review of Caro’s latest that focuses on one of the big themes of the book, the hatred between Johnson and Bobby Kennedy. One of the interesting things in Caro’s book is that he at least rhetorically rides the fence on two big historical questions: Did John Kennedy really back almost […]

Nicholas Katzenbach, whose government service (mostly in the Justice Department) encompassed much of the major issues of the 1960s, from civil rights to Viet Nam to the Kennedy assassination. He famously encountered George Wallace at “the schoolhouse door” at the University of Alabama, and was in Oxford with the Marshalls to assure James Meredith’s admission to the University of Mississippi.

Folks who have read Robert Caro’s latest installment on Lyndon Johnson would have encountered him.

He was first headed the Office of Legal Counsel (at the request of his friend Byron White), and was later Robert Kennedy’s number two until replacing Kennedy in 1964 when Kennedy ran for Senate.

Perhaps his most tense moment in government came on June 11, 1963, when he confronted George C. Wallace in stifling heat on the steps of the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. Mr. Wallace was the Alabama governor who had trumpeted “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever” and vowed to block the admission of two black students “at the schoolhouse door.”

Mr. Katzenbach, flanked by a federal marshal and a United States attorney, approached Foster Auditorium, the main building on campus, around 11 a.m. Mr. Wallace was waiting behind a lectern at the top of the stairs, surrounded by a crowd of whites, some armed.

“Stop!” he called out, raising his hand like a traffic cop.

Mr. Katzenbach read a presidential proclamation ordering that the students be admitted and asked the governor to step aside peacefully. Mr. Wallace read a five-minute statement castigating “the central government” for “suppression of rights.”

Towering over Mr. Wallace, Mr. Katzenbach, a 6-foot-2-inch former hockey goalie, was dismissive. “I’m not interested in this show,” he said.

Once Lyndon Johnson became president, a remarkable historical resource became available: His recording of all his phone calls at the White House and at his ranch. This allows Robert Caro to describe with an extraordinary vividness events from early December of 1963 on.

Robert Caro’s account (New Yorker subscription required) of the day Kennedy was shot, from Lyndon Johnson’s perspective, is an amazing and vivid piece of writing. It’s a moment-by-moment account, and both carries the reader along with great intensity and describes the crisis lived through by people in the presidential entourage that day.